I'll be going for a browse on the Saturday, will be entering around 12 - 1. First I'll be going to Comic Con with an early bird ticket to hopefully photograph some of the many characters there. They are both on at the NEC at the same time, quite useful.

Surely time to bump this thread up now? Less than a week to go; anyone else decided to venture to the NEC yet? I am aiming to be there for opening at 10am on Saturday if the trains are running on time. First one leaves a local-ish station at 7:30am so it will be a very early start for me

Caught the 7.31 train from BAW and arrived at BHI In time to walk to TPS and have to wait for the 10am opening. Better managed queue than last year by far. Wasn't too crowded helped by a very wide central aisle. Room for people to sit down and eat their own packed lunch if they brought one. 4 1/2 to 5 hours walking round and spending too much money! Home by 6pm exhausted but happy. Roll on next year's show !

I went to Comic Con, but not the photography show. No money for new gear (and don't actually need any new gear, need to learn how to better exploit / use what I have first) and I wanted to get off my arse, and actually practice taking indoor con shots (after my failed attempt in November last year).

I visited Comic Con first, came away with some good images. Most shot up close with the 8mm fisheye.

At the Photography Show I looked at shoulder bags, and didn't find one that met my requirements. They were either too small, to large, or weather sealing was poor. I did try out a Nikon fit Tokina 11-20mm lens and decided it will be my next purchase.

Have to say I wasn't entirely impressed on Monday. Yes, Hall 5 is probably better, but I felt one reason why there was more space was that there were less stands, particularly from smaller companies.
The Canon stand was the best designed, and massively busy, and I liked the T shirts they were wearing. For once, I wasn't bothered about the DSLRs and lenses, but did spend some time with the compacts - I still miss my little S90, and the G9X which is tiny and has a 1" sensor looked rather nice.
Nikon stand also busy - so busy I've no idea what they were showing. Fuji was also quite busy, but I had a go with the X-Pro 2. By a country mile the best EVF I've yet seen, I could actually use it for everything except panning, and you can always just use the optical finder. Nice camera.
In contrast, the Pentax/Ricoh/whatever stand was pretty deserted, and it was very easy to have a play with the K-1.It's very well made, but felt entirely alien to me and very odd in the hand - but then all recent Pentax DSLRs have, so if you like them, you'll like this, probably a lot.
Biggest disappointment was the Olympus Pen F. I actually like the look of it, and have been using an old Pen FT recently, so was looking forward to having a go. Beyond a vague physical resemblance, though, the only thing they share is the very poor quality of their viewfinders.After seeing how good the X-Pro 2's was, I was absolutely astonished at the awfulness of the Pen F's.Despite being in a much brighter setting, the noise was extreme, and it had more lag than Wormwood Scrubs, and was more jerky than a reality TV show.Utterly unusable for me. On top of that, the camera is absolutely festooned with controls - couldn't be more of a contrast with the original Pen F/FTs with their very minimalist approach. My Pen E-P1 is more Pen F-like than the Pen F. Additionally, the rear screen felt very fragile and the menus were just dreadful - not helped by the help, which tended to obstruct the actual menu items. I'm sure you can turn that off, but it was very offputting. All in all, it appeared to be designed more for the male jewellery market than for photographers.
Always like the chance to have a good look at Alpas and Linhofs.

A few really good offers on some bits of kit, but mostly out of my price range this year - did come close to buying a 24mm TS-E despite that. Memory cards were outstandingly good value almost everywhere, though. Couldn't work out the deals being offered on Lee filters, everyone seemed to have a different deal structure making it hard to compare prices, so I didn't bother. Had a quick play with the Petzval lenses on the Lomography stand, and what I class as their Lensbaby equivalents.

I'd thought of going as I've done very many times in the past to "Focus on Imaging", but I was put off by the combination of the entry cost and the car park fee. (For comparison, I can visit Ally Pally - about the same distance - and their car park is free.) I think another factor is that at the moment I've got enough cameras and lenses, so the special show offers aren't part of the cost equation.

Yes the car parking is certainly a lot of money to fork out I think it was £12, but its always expensive at the N.E.C The last time I took my car there I could not get off the carpark for hours so never again, I was there to see a concert, nowadays I use local transport and as I am a senior that does not cost anything.......Oh and by the way I thought the show was great! I saved an absolute fortune on the day! I took my wife with me................

I visited on the Sunday and it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. Managed to check a few bits of hardware out - was looking around for Big Stopper equivalent screw in filter and found one at the SRB stand for £30 (which is around £170 cheaper than the lee big stopper - once you factor in the foundation kit, 82 lens ring and the filter) - not tried it yet, but it managed to get a 4/5 rating from an AP review. Also went to see Chris Packham at the Super Stage, also bumped in to him later and chatted briefly - nice bloke, seemed to have time for anyone who spoke to him.

.....the Pentax/Ricoh/whatever stand was pretty deserted, and it was very easy to have a play with the K-1.It's very well made, but felt entirely alien to me and very odd in the hand - but then all recent Pentax DSLRs have, so if you like them, you'll like this, probably a lot.

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Yes, I visited the Ricoh-Pentax stand within half an hour of the show opening and it was largely deserted with several K-1's on display and nobody holding/touching any of them. It certainly feels a substantial piece of equipment but appeared, as you say, a little alien to use/set parameters.

Car parking? Don't bother, I went by train. A fairly short walk from the station to the hall, all under cover too. Train journey home as fraught as ever, so many events on at the NEC and just one short (4-carriage) train per hour back to the central south area (Reading, to change trains). I don't understand why they don't put more carriages on, or run more trains when there are multiple events on at the NEC at week-ends. Still cheaper and less stressful than driving even if I had to stand for the best part of an hour on the first part of my homeward journey.